Senator Spartacus Booker loves making pre-2020 drama

The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court Justice has a man putting himself in the spotlight. No, it’s not Kavanaugh, though it should be. Instead, the man of the day is Senator Cory Booker, an unofficial 2020 presidential candidate, and today was his “look at me” moment.

He wanted it to be his “I am Spartacus” moment, but it came off as silly. The documents he was allegedly willing to throw himself on his own sword over were released hours earlier and his office was made aware. Still, he pretended to know nothing.

My Take

Senator Booker is the biggest self-promoter and most obvious user of his status as Senator to propel himself into the 2020 race. Today’s stunt eclipses anything Kamala Harris or past Senators have done to make headlines for a future run.

Beto 2020 is real and Republicans shouldn’t ignore it

Any time a candidate for one office says they will not run in for a different office later, don’t believe them. It’s a pre-election narrative to dispel rumors from their opponents that the first office is just a stepping stone. It also gives a sense of urgency to the candidate’s potential voters. Put me in office now because you won’t get a chance later, or so the story goes.

If anything, someone saying they won’t run for a higher office later is a sure indicator they will consider running for a higher office later. That’s why when Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) said he wouldn’t run for President in 2020 whether he won his Senate race or not, I took it as a sure sign he would definitely run if he did well in Texas. I figured if he got blown away, he was done. If he won the Senate race, he’d probably wait until 2024 if President Trump won in 2020 or 2028 if a Democrat won in 2020.

The only way he’d run in 2020, by my estimation, was if he lost but came close. He lost to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) by just over 200,000 votes. Cruz won in 2012 by over 1.2 million votes.

What I considered the trigger scenario for a Beto 2020 presidential run happened. Now, we’re seeing stories like these:

Sparked by his narrow defeat in a Texas Senate race, Beto O’Rourke is scrambling the 2020 presidential primary field, freezing Democratic donors and potential campaign staffers in place as they await word of his plans.

Even prior to O’Rourke’s meteoric rise, many Democratic fundraisers had approached the large number of 2020 contenders with apprehension, fearful of committing early to one candidate. But the prospect of a presidential bid by O’Rourke, whose charismatic Senate candidacy captured the party’s imagination, has suddenly rewired the race.

Before anyone comes to the conclusion I think I “called it,” I’m acutely aware that I missed Beto by a mile. Yes, I believed that the scenarios were aligned so that a close defeat would propel him to a 2020 presidential bid, but I also had assumed until about a week before the election that he was going to lose by a wide margin. Even on election day I predicted 7.5%. He lost by 2.6%, which in Texas means I missed it by nearly half a million votes. No, I didn’t see the risk he represented properly.

I see it now.

He has three major things going for him that, to me, make him the person to watch over the next year at least.

He’s the best fundraiser in the nation. Period. For a Senate race, he was able to raise $38 million in the third quarter alone and nearly $70 million total. This is small fries for a presidential run, but the only other Senate candidate to come close was Rick Scott in Florida. The #3 and #4 fundraisers – Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Bob Hugin in New Jersey – were able to raise $63 million combined. If he raised that much for a Senate race, he would be able to easily eclipse Hillary Clinton’s 2016 totals. The only person who is arguably better than O’Rourke at fundraising is Barack Obama, and he’ll surely be helping O’Rourke if he gets the nomination.

His national appeal is similar to Barack Obama’s. To be more accurate, his national appeal far exceeds Barack Obama’s appeal when he ran for the Senate in Illinois. These are different days so we can’t assume his head start on appeal will translate into more popularity than the former President if he were to win the nomination, but it bodes well for O’Rourke that he’s still getting a ton of attention two weeks after losing an election. At this point in 2016, even Democrats were begging Hillary Clinton to go away. But they haven’t had their fill on Beto yet.

He has nothing better to do. When the incoming representatives are sworn in next year, he’ll be a free man. Free to hang out in Iowa and New Hampshire. Free to attack Republicans over policies and Democrats over failures. Free to talk to bundlers, strategists, journalists, and voters. While his competition will be sitting in Senate committee meetings or running their business, O’Rourke will be in 2020 mode without having to hide it. Losing may have been a blessing in disguise.

The midterm elections demonstrated opposition to Trump is as rabid as his support. It’s hard to imagine someone as far to the left as O’Rourke winning. Then again, it was hard to imagine him getting over 48% of the vote in Texas.

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Following a terrible week for Michael Avenatti, his law firm has been evicted over past due rent

Things were looking pretty bad for attorney Michael Avenatti last week. He was arrested for domestic abuse, making him the laughing stock on social media venues that he prizes as his public relations arm. His star client, porn star Stormy Daniels, is reportedly reconsidering her association with her lawyer. That was last week. This week is starting off badly as well.

His law firm has been evicted from their Newport Beach, California office building for skipping out on four months rent totally $213,000.

Michael Avenatti’s law firm was ordered to be evicted from its California offices over unpaid rent after the judge dismissed his attempt to block the eviction, the latest setback for the embattled lawyer who was arrested on domestic violence charges earlier this week.

His law firm – Eagan Avenatti – was sued after skipping four months of rent payments totaling over $213,000.

My Take

As I was saying even before this latest round of bad news, Michael Avenatti needs to take a long break from the public eye. Even the best spin doctors couldn’t salvage his reputation in the short term. If he hopes to someday emerge into the public spotlight that he craves, he’ll need to take a break from being in the news and get some solid ground underneath him.

Many leftists supported him in his quests to take down the President, block Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, launch a 2020 presidential run, and become a prominent face for the Democratic Party. It’s safe to say they backed the wrong horse.

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Many Democrats support Mueller investigation without knowing what it’s about

Two years and two elections ago, something happened that has Democrats scratching their heads even today. Hillary Clinton lost. She wasn’t supposed to lose. She was cheated some way, somehow.

This is what they hope to be proven by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 elections. The problem is a majority of Democrats think the Russians did something that Mueller’s team isn’t even investigating because there’s absolutely no hint of a possibility that it could be true.

67% of Democrats believe “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President.”

Let that sink in.

If you believe Russia attempted to influence the elections by using social media and other venues to spread anti-Hillary rhetoric, you’re almost certainly correct. In fact, the Mueller investigation has assumed that to be true from the beginning. The question isn’t whether or not Russia tried to influence the elections in this way. It’s whether or not Americans helped them, in particular members of the Trump campaign.

What’s not being considered is whether or not Russia tampered with vote tallies. They did not. It’s not even a consideration in Mueller’s investigation, yet two-thirds of Democrats believe it to be true.

67% of Democrats can’t wait for Mueller to prove their theories correct even though he isn’t even investigating vote tally tampering at all. It’s reminiscent of the days after Obamacare was launched when Democrats asked, “Wait, it’s not free?”